Case Number: D2018-0587
Complainant: UMix, LLC and Franklin Tarantino
Represented by: Franklin Tarantino
A Florida-based company providing streaming music and digital advertising services to businesses has been found guilty of attempted Reverse Domain Name Hijacking in its effort to acquire the domain, umix.com, using a UDRP filing. The company, UMix LLC, of Windermere, Florida, asserted in its complaint that it was entitled to the domain because it held business registrations by the same name dating to 2011, the same year the domain was acquired by its current owner, Memeplex Ltd. of Manchester, England. In fact, UMix LLC only acquired an actual service mark, which incorporates the term, UMix, on January 17, 2017.
That fact was not lost on the sole panelist at the World Intellectual Property Organization, John Swinson, who wrote, “Having only recently acquired a registration for the Trade Mark, the Complainant provided no evidence of common law or unregistered trade mark rights, or of its reputation at any given time. The Complainant must have known that this would be necessary to show bad faith registration.”
UMix, LLC was represented by one of its principals, Franklin Tarantino, who registered the LLC in Florida in 2017, but stated in his incorporation papers that the registration was retroactive to 2000, according to the Florida Secretary of State website, sunbiz.org.
Source: https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2018-0587